Monday, September 21, 2009

Y3Kast One: September 2009:"CONLANGALANG"

"... But suddenly I viddied, that thinking was for the gloopy ones, and that the oomny ones used, like, inspiration and what bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid. There was a window open with the stereo on, and I viddied right at once what to do ..." - Alex narrates in Nadsat, the fictional argot of Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" novel.The first Y3Kast will be an ever-growing, multiple-hour study on audio projects that involve constructed languages, fictional vernaculars, and idiocratic vocal practice as a means of creative expression outside of traditional "natural languages". From Arthur Machen's forbidden Aklo scriptures, first penned in his "The White People" of 1899 (and later adopted by H.P. Lovecraft, Alan Moore, Robert Anton Wilson, amongst others), to Christian Vander's Kobaïan, used to communicate a "vision of humanity's spiritual and ecological future" through the lyrics of his musical group Magma, this artistic construction of languages, or "glossopoeia" as J.R.R. Tolkien once coined it, has played an important role in the illustration of fictional worlds; in the unveiling of possible universes. Other planned languages, such as many examples of argots, consciously veil, keeping information channeled and coded from outsider majorities through manipulating common languages into slang, secretive subcultural vernaculars. The rejection of native languages altogether through using the voice as an experimental tool or musical instrument goes further again in transcending nationalistic communication boundaries, to reach a more universal level of exchange and to propel the vast potential of the human (or other fellow earth species) voice beyond the common word. To sing it differently.

We hope you enjoy the first two installments of our mixtape ramble. More is to come ...